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Single Idea 9786

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy ]

Full Idea

The notion that philosophy can be done cooperatively, in the manner of scientists or engineers engaged in a research project, seems to me absurd. And yet few philosophers can survive in isolation.

Gist of Idea

Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard

Source

Richard Cartwright (Intro to 'Philosophical Essays' [1987], xxi)

Book Ref

Cartwright,Richard: 'Philosophical Essays' [MIT 1987], p.-6


A Reaction

This why Nietzsche said that philosophers were 'rare plants'.

Related Ideas

Idea 1576 If each of us can give some logos about parts of nature, our combined efforts can be impressive [Aristotle]

Idea 4520 I don't want to persuade anyone to be a philosopher; they should be rare plants [Nietzsche]


The 19 ideas from Richard Cartwright

While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes [Cartwright,R]
A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system [Cartwright,R]
Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard [Cartwright,R]
Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R]
An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R]
The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential [Cartwright,R]
Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic [Cartwright,R]
Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R]
We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R]
To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R]
'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R]
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R]
Clearly a pipe can survive being taken apart [Cartwright,R]
Bodies don't becomes scattered by losing small or minor parts [Cartwright,R]